They made love many times that night, or what SG thought was night. There was no way to tell day from night in this underworld. At last, she told Anubis she needed rest. She was sexually fulfilled as never before, but she was also exhausted. Servants appeared, girls who resembled the servants above but whose skin was paler. They had grey, expressionless eyes. They took her to her chambers, which were even more lavish of those of Her Ladyship. An owl on a golden perch stared at her, then turned away, uninterested.

She slept for many hours. When she awakened, servants filled a marble bathtub with warm water, and they sponged her gently. When she emerged from her bath, they anointed her with perfumes and fragrant oils. She tried to engage them in conversation, but they remained silent. Later, at dinner, Anubis explained that they were all mute - a sisterhood of mutes who once had lived in a land beyond the Great Sea. They had been taken as slaves by Pharaoh's navy and were put to death to amuse Her Ladyship. "Put to death?" said SG. "But how can that be? They are here, alive." "Things are not what they seem, my love," said Anubis. "You are in the kingdom of the dead. I am ruler here." "Does that mean that you're dead?" she asked. Then she added quickly, "Or that I'm dead?"

He laughed. "No, I am not dead, and neither are you. My role is to weigh the souls of the dead and help decide who will go on to eternal life in the underworld and who will be fed to Ammut." "Who is Ammut?" SG asked, but Anubis did not answer. Later, in her chambers, it was the owl who satisfied SG's curiosity. As SG unrolled a papyrus scroll on a marble table in her chambers and marveled at the beauty of its hieroglyphics, the owl spoke. "You asked about Ammut, my princess," he said. "She is a demoness who devours the souls of the unworthy. She is a monster with the head of a crocodile, the body of a leopard and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus." "How horrible!" said SG. "Horrible perhaps," said the owl. "But necessary. The souls of the unworthy must be destroyed. It's a matter of hygiene, as well as justice. Ammut is as important here in the underworld as the vulture and the jackal are above."

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Though SG had vanished from the palace where Her Ladyship was such an important figure, she had not been forgotten. Her Ladyship received reports every few days of Anubis's infatuation with this fair-haired beauty. She was his favorite concubine, it was said. That was a role Her Ladyship once envisioned for herself, and her heart was filled with envy. This blonde bitch must be destroyed. The love Anubis felt for her must somehow be transformed into hate. Her Ladyship was expert at the very personal politics of royalty and divinity. She would find a way. It was only a matter of time.

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